NBC Is Golden With Increase in Globes Audience

The Golden Globes struck a rich ratings vein for NBC on Sunday, as the award show’s audience ballooned more than 20% over a year ago and paced the network to an easy weekly victory, according to figures released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Supporting honors Sunday went to the civil rights drama “Ruby Bridges,” which claimed this season’s second-highest rating (behind “Cinderella”) for an original movie presented under ABC’s “Wonderful World of Disney” banner.

On the downside, ABC’s first-year programs “Nothing Sacred” and “Cracker” performed abysmally in their move to Saturday nights, and while the premiere of “Prey” increased the network’s ratings Thursday, the sci-fi series still drew an audience about one-third the size of that watching “Friends”--a testimonial to how poorly ABC has fared on Thursdays this season.

CBS has helped its cause with the midseason series “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” hosted by Bill Cosby, which for the second straight week both won its Friday time slot and out-rated Cosby’s sitcom. The network faces problems on Mondays, however, where its police drama “Brooklyn South” is taking a beating, running a distant third at 10 p.m. behind “Dateline NBC” and “The Practice.”

National Nielsen Viewership

Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (Jan. 12-18) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates that there are 254 million potential U.S. viewers age 2 and older. Viewership is listed here in millions.

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Network Averages

Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

Last Week

NBC: 16.71 million

CBS: 12.92

ABC: 12.21

FOX: 9.96

WB: 4.46

UPN: 4.09

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Season to Date

NBC: 15.03 million

CBS: 13.63

ABC: 12.98

FOX: 10.70

UPN: 4.33

WB: 4.31

Southland Viewing

Here are Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. The rankings are based on the number of households watching.

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Program Station Households 1. ER KNBC 1,187,188 2. Golden Globe Awards KNBC 1,097,021 3. Seinfeld KNBC 1,056,948 4. Friends KNBC 876,615 Veronica’s Closet KNBC 876,615 6. NYPD Blue KABC 821,514 7. Frasier KNBC 776,431 8. 60 Minutes KCBS 736,357 9. The Drew Carey Show KABC 671,237 10. Beverly Hills, 90210 KTTV 646,191 Union Square KNBC 646,191

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